Today In Gay History: March 9, 1969 – Police Beat Gay Man to Death During Los Angeles Hotel Raid
by Will Kohler
The
Dover Hotel was a five-story brick building in downtown Los Angeles.
The hotel operated as an early version of the soon to become popular
bathhouse scene. Gay men checked in, removed their clothing, and laid
on their beds with the doors open waiting for others to walk by.
It
was, not surprisingly, the scene of a number of raids by LAPD’s vice
squad. During the raid that fateful day, Howard Efland, a male nurse
who checked into the hotel under the pseudonym of J. McCann, was
brutally beaten and kicked to death outside the hotel, in front of
witnesses.
LA
vice officers Lemuel Chauncey and and Richard Halligan claimed that
Efland groped them so they arrested him, drug him out into the street,
and in front of several witnesses the two police officers started
beating the unarmed, unresistant gay man to death while he screamed “Help me! My God, someone help me!" as the officers kicked him, did knee drops on his stomach, and stomped on him to death.
Howard Elfland died in front of the Dover Hotel of massive internal injuries
The
LAPD at first informed his parents that their son had merely died of a
heart attack. The L.A. County Cororner ruled Elfland's death an
"excusable homicide" and the story was withheld from the mainstream
media. However the Advocate responded by calling the LAPD "psychotics"
and Rev. Troy Perry led 120 marchers in a rally at the site of Efland's
murder to commemorate his fatal beating.
No one was ever held accountable for Howard Elflands his murder.
Never forget.
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